Huntington Gardens - Shoya House

Our annual visit to the Huntington Gardens brought us to the new Shoya House Exhibit in the grounds adjacent to the Bonsai and Zen courts of the Japanese garden. It has taken only seven years to relocate this wood and clay house, section by section, using the same carpentry methods and hand tools as those used by the original craftsman. The house was built around 1700 and was both a family home and administrative center for the farming community.

Shoya house at the Huntington Gardens

Simple precise wood joints are held together by weight and through careful design without the need to add screws or nails. Our background as furniture makers gave us a deep appreciation of the hand planes, chisels and spoke shaves on display at the exhibit which are similar in function if not form to the old tools Martin brought with him from England.

 A comparison of the chisels used by the Japanese carpenter from those used in carving shows how that the Japanese tools had a straight acute end ideal for cutting a straight edge into wood used in making tightly fitted joints for beam and furniture construction. By comparison, most carving chisels have curved blades designed for removing and shaping wood. In both instances a mallet would have been used to hit the handle to help push the blade into the wood.

 A visit to the Japanese garden would not be complete without some shots of the amazing bonsai on display. The word “bonsai” is Japanese for “tree in a pot”. It describes trees that are grown and trained to appear as mature miniature replicas of tall older trees of the same species or as a collection of trees. The picture here shows bonsai “Goshin 111” designed by the well-known bonsaist, John Naka and it captures the shape of a small Juniper Forest with 11 trees.

To understand more I visited the site for the Golden State Bonsai Federation and learnt that Goshin 111 or” Spirit of the Guardian” is the third generation of this bonsai but one that closely follows the original design and represents John Naka’s children and grandchildren. In the 1990’s John Naka began training his 11 trees for Goshin 111 which was dedicated to the Huntington in 2001. Like all bonsai, the health of the soil and stability of the root system are key to its survival and must be constantly maintained and repaired. For this reason, only a prime selection of the collection is on display at one time with the balance being in various stages of restoration.

 Bamboo Corridor

There is no better way to approach the Japanese gardens than through the corridor of gently swaying bamboo shown below.

Our collection of plant cabinet pulls includes left and right facing sections of bamboo and a small bamboo stem.

The content of this post is based on information available at the Huntington Gardens site and the Golden Stare Bonsai Federation both well worth visiting.

Mushroom a fruit of nature and imagination

When I think of fruit my mind conjures up images of persimmons, strawberries and other sweet delicacies that I am fond of but it does not bring to mind mushrooms. This January we discovered a rather humorous and very suggestive mushroom in our garden and I was intrigued to learn more. The internet journey was helpful and I learned  that the mushroom in our garden is known as the stinkhorn which explains why our food obsessed dog gave it only a passing sniff.

The mushrooms in our collection of cabinet pulls like so many of our pieces are not a literal portrayal of any specific mushroom rather they are  a synthesis of different mushroom types that we cook with and that we grew up with. The toadstool, portobello and shitake mushrooms shapes are the closest to the shape of our left and right mushroom pulls. So what is our small double capped button mushroom pull closest too?

I discovered that the button mushroom, cremini and portobello mushrooms are not different species but rather different stages of the same species, Agaricus bisporus. The button mushroom is the young immature form and is characteristically paler and milder in flavor. The cremini stage is somewhere in the middle with a more defined flavor and the portobello is the mature adult with a very full meaty flavor. As the mushroom develops its anatomical parts are more easily seen and are labelled here.

The mushroom is the visible fruit of  a much larger fungus and the gills of the cap contain the spores which allow the fungus to continue reproducing. The mycelium is the vast root system of the fungus and it can cover acres and is critical to most plant life. I have labelled the mushroom parts in my greyscale photo of our left facing mushroom.

Slim but Strong – using Cabinet Pulls for Closet Doors

The Ergo 12” cabinet pull is a slim curvaceous and very strong piece that belies its delicate features. It is cast either in 316 stainless steel or silicon bronze and both alloys perform well in terms of tensile strength. In other posts I have described how the chemistry of each, and the method of manufacturing impacts the strength, corrosion resistance and malleability of each alloy.
Tensile strength is measured in terms of yield strength and ultimate strength. The former indicates the metals’ ability to be stressed to the point where it is distorted or does not return to its original cast shape. Ultimate strength refers to the breaking point of a metal (see footnotes at the end of this post).
Recently the Ergo cabinet pull has been specified for use on closet doors and the customer needed reassurance that the pull was strong enough to act as a door pull. To demonstrate this, I used a heavy display board laden with several pieces and weighing a total of 40lbs and easily lifted it using the Ergo pull.

While an alloys strength is important if a pull is to be used for a heavy door it is worth noting that the hinges of the door take the brunt of the heavy lifting and their number and strength will have a greater bearing on the pull’s performance.

The scale of a cabinet pull is equally important when assessing its suitability as a door pull. The closet doors in this instance were double doors each measuring 18” W by 90”H so worked well with a 12” pull.

Step by Step process till a sophisticated 2 tone gem is created;

1. Red Wax Replicas made in a rubber mold for every pull one wax will be made; each will be shelled then invested with 316 stainless steel

2. Once cast the pieces are ground to remove the gates, the pieces are cleaned and then each is polished on all sides

3. Top photo if you zoom in you will see how the pull is masked with blue tape - once in place the piece is sand polished with a fine grit of sand to create a satin finish. The end result is a 2 tone polished-satin finish.

To learn more about how metals vary in tensile strength.

Cabinet pulls undergo website re-model

It’s official, we have completed the remodel of the cabinet pull section of our website and hope that you will enjoy the new look and details.
Why the changes?
We have re-photographed our work in-house with the use of a light-box and a Canon EOS Rebel 35mm camera to better capture the detailed nature of our castings and to show that these fine details are not limited to one facet but are on all facets of each piece.
By showing different perspectives we hope to encourage customers to think outside the usual horizontal and vertical placement of pulls and consider different angles and directions for a more creative arrangement. Since our work is often described as whimsical customers should have some fun when facing the daunting task of planning their new home or remodel.

We hope we have made the task of pull placement easier with our black and white diagrams that show the width, height, depth and distance between mounting screws for each pull. The diagrams also show the distance between different points on a given line thereby removing some of the stress when figuring out the difference in meaning of “depth” versus “height” and “length”.

The new web pages also show the difference in appearance between our popular light and dark oil rubbed finishes. We still offer nickel plating and colored hot patinas so please contact us to discuss other finish options.
The images and diagrams have been complied in a new digital pdf that can be downloaded from each of the new pages or downloaded below.